Welcome
I am an historian and former diplomat who has written two books plus numerous shorter works on historical topics. I have also written commentaries heard on National Public Radio stations and the Voice of America, and am a frequent guest, in person or by remote feed, on BBC Radio in Cambridge, UK. I am now working on a book regarding Palestine in the 19th and early 20th centuries. In another persona, I write plays and fiction under the pen name, Duke Ryan.
My books include:
The Fall of Che Guevara: A Story of Soldiers, Spies, and Diplomats
(Oxford, paperback edition, 1999)
Summary: The book describes the US Government’s response to Che Guevara’s insurgency in Bolivia in 1966-67. The story serves as a case history of US counterinsurgency practices following World War II that were honed to a fine point during the tense Cold War years of the 1960s.
The Journal of Military History says:
“…well researched, utilizing Cuban, U.S., and Bolivian sources, and is a cracking ‘good read.’”
For more reviews and excerpts from the book click here.
The Vision of Anglo-America: The US-UK Alliance and the Emerging Cold War, 1943-1946
(Cambridge, paperback edition, 2004)
Summary:
The book demonstrates the importance of the decline in British power after World War II in the creation of the Cold War. It analyzes the concerted attempts made by the British wartime coalition government to forge a perpetual merger with the USA in international affairs to arrest this global decline.
The English Historical Review says, “…the work is a valuable and stimulating study, enhanced by clarity and style.”
For more reviews and excerpts from the book click here.
I have also written introductions to two books:
The Complete Bolivian Diaries of Che Guevara and Other Captured Documents
Daniel James, ed.
(A new edition by Cooper Square Press, 2000)
For an excerpt from the introduction, click here.
Che Guevara: A Biography
By Daniel James
(A new edition by Cooper Square Press, 2001)
For an excerpt from the introduction, click here.
I am presently working on another book:
The Homeland: From Catherine the Great to Harry S. Truman, the People and Policies that Created Israel
Synopsis:
This book will look at the history of the Jewish homeland in Palestine, bringing in factors rarely considered when that story is told. These will include:
- the fearful 19th century oppression, especially in Russia, that more than anything helped stimulate Zionism;
- the British Government’s involvement with the Jewish population in Palestine starting in the early 19th century;
- the concern of the American Jewish community and the U.S. Congress over the plight of Jews in Tsarist Russia from the 1880s on;
- American involvement in Palestinian affairs during the British League of Nations Mandate for Palestine and again during the final cataclysm of terrorism, war, and British evacuation during the mid 1940s;
- American diplomacy in all these events.
For excerpts, click here.
Fiction
Impure Thoughts, Four Novellas
(Publish America, 2004)
In Impure Thoughts, two young brothers cope with painful change, senseless crime, and thwarted love.
BookWire says“…Impure Thoughts is a mature mixture of realism, romance,and thrills… Immensely entertaining, and at the same time thought-provoking, these stories would form a perfect gift to give to one's friends.”
For a synopsis of the stories, more reviews and excerpts, click here.
Plays
Cyrano (full-length musical)
Swedes on the Danube (one-act)
Death of Big Momma (one-act)
Xingu (one-act)
Remember Nora (ten-minute sequel to Ibsen’s A Doll's House).
Atoning for Joan (ten-minutes)
Click here to learn more about my plays.